Gouda and Spinach Shells and Cheese

| Disclosure: This recipe was created for Ancient Harvest. See below for more details. |

With summer nearly upon us (it really will be here before we known it), I’ve been thinking a lot about get-togethers. You know the drill- picnics, cookouts, and potlucks of all kinds. Summer really brings out the communal aspect of food and with the landscape of food changing, so does what the average get-together looks like. Get-togethers in my family have definitely changed over the years and we focus packing as many vegetables into dishes, having vegetarian options, and in the past couple of years- keeping nearly everything gluten-free (trying to cover all the family members!) So many of our traditional ‘party’ foods have gotten a drastic makeover and we don’t miss the potato salad/hot dog cookouts of yesteryear.

This recipe is a slight adaption from one of the variations of Mac and Cheese from The Easy Vegetarian Kitchen. I thought it would be fun to show that it doesn’t necessarily have to be hard to adapt a recipe to be gluten-free (especially when it only take swapping out two ingredients!) I used Ancient Harvest’s shells (which are a mix of corn and quinoa flour) that hold together well in this type of dish and a gluten-free all purpose flour for the thickener (I keep a stock of my own- a combo of rice flour, sorghum flour, millet flour and starches, but you can always buy- there are quite a few options on the market now).

With this recipe I’m also excited to announce that over the next few months, I’ll be bringing you one fresh, gluten-free recipe a month thanks to Ancient Harvest as part of their ambassador program. If you’re not familiar with Ancient Harvest, they highlight ancient grains in products like gluten-free pastas (featured in today’s recipe), polenta, and my favorite: quinoa. And with my recipe archives as proof, I eat a ton of quinoa so this partnership seemed pretty obvious (plus their products are organic and ones that help me easily adapt non-gf recipes.) If you would like to try one of their products (like the pasta for this mac and cheese), you can grab a $1 off coupon from their site.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 ̊F (190 ̊C, or gas mark 5). Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook pasta according to box (make sure you don’t overcook the pasta!)

In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the minced garlic, salt, and pepper over medium-low heat. Cook until the garlic is fragrant, 60 seconds . Add the gluten-free flour and cook for another minute. Stir in the milk and heat until thickened, 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from the heat and add half (3 ounces) of the cheese.

In a 9 by 9-inch (23 by 23 cm) baking dish (or its equivalent), combine the pasta with spinach then pour the cheese sauce over, stirring until well combined. Top with the remaining half of the cheese. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and golden brown on top.

Did you make this recipe?

| Disclosure: This recipe was created for Ancient Harvest as part of their brand ambassadorship program. All thoughts and opinions are my own. It’s content like this that helps me keep this site running to provide the vegetarian recipes you see every week. |

I also love your mission: “live natural. be healthy. eat delicious” We all need to connect with real food. Farm to Table Adventures is hitting the road to explore what we eat, one ingredient at a time. It should be quite an adventure. I hope you will join us

Wowsa, Erin. This looks so good! I love ancient harvest – when I was gluten free for a short while, I found that their pastas were the only kind that had the same consistency as gluten-full varieties. Also I love gouda on everything.